A Velociraptor wishbone

Mark A. Norell, Peter Makovicky and James M. Clark
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Mark A. Norell: American Museum of Natural History
Peter Makovicky: American Museum of Natural History
James M. Clark: George Washington University

Nature, 1997, vol. 389, issue 6650, 447-447

Abstract: Abstract The ‘wishbone’ of birds comprises two clavicles fused into a structure1 known as a furcula. In an influential 1926 book on bird origins by Heilmann2, the furcula's supposed absence in dinosaurs was considered powerful evidence barring them from bird ancestry. A furcula has now been found in several theropod dinosaurs3,4, but its absence in other theropods, and the uncertainty of whether this absence is real or an artefact of preservation, obscures the evolutionary history of this structure5. Here we report the discovery of a furcula in Dromaeosauridae, a group posited to be the closest relative of birds6,7.

Date: 1997
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DOI: 10.1038/38918

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